story + art = great stART – Strawberries, Bears and Mice!

June 30, 2010

Once you have looked at the video below, you will see that we have been working on this post since April! So, the strawberry came first and then the book. With summer upon us, we have all just experienced the wonders of spring. I wanted to capture some of this for Red Ted, so since April I have been photographing the development of three little strawberries.

Editing is not brilliant, neither is the sound overlay (you can hear Pip Squeak shuffling around)- I am learning!!!

Red Ted loved watching the process:

– I showed him when the petals fell off (the blossom is insaminated)

– I showed him where the fruit was developing

– We looked at the green strawberries and how

– they turned green and then, quite suddenly

– an orangey red appeared, it got deeper and deeper until we had

– a beautiful, delicious looking red strawberry.

Throughout this process Red Ted learned to “wait” (our “wait” sign language sign was in constant use) and he never touched one. Now that he has tasted the forbidden fruit, it is like the floodgates have opened and he can’t stop… and there I was, so proud of his “restraint”. Still, we have had fun.

I wanted to combine this with a book about “growing” (and reviewed some books on the garden here). I finally bought this little strawberry book – The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear, by Audrey Wood, Don Wood. We love strawberries, Mice (Pip Squeak) and Bears (Red Ted) in our house and I had seen it reviewed by A Mommy’s Adventure over on her (the original!!) stART projects. The book is about a little mouse that sets off to pick a strawberry, the narrator reminds the mouse that the Big Hungry Bear also loves a big red ripe strawberry and that the mouse must do something to avoid the bear from coming… Very sweet. We loved the illustrations and the way the “reader talks to the mouse”. What I found at the end of the book, was that Red Ted kept “looking for the bear” (which doesn’t actually make an appearance in the book), so I decided that the bear would be our craft project! We did it with one of his friends that was visiting:

bless… funnily enough my sad little strawberries plants from last year in a hanging basket produced 3 very small but delicious little berries which my 3 children enjoyed last night! Wish I’d taken a picture now worth all the waiting….

Video isn’t working for me 🙁 (Not your fault – something in our weird linux set up that happens on a regular basis) but wu-hay (or however you spell it) MORE GLITTER! Sometimes as a mum I think I really ought to invest in some glitter stocks! (our stART also involved lots of glitter!)

Those teddy bears are adorable all hanging up like that! And kudos to Red for waiting on those strawberries. My kids eat them straight out of the garden as soon as they see them. I have yet to actually pick any of them.

I’m very thankful you are linking up these posts to Feed Me Books Friday. Please be sure to leave a link back to my blog when you participate to help let others know where to find more great children’s books as well. Keep up the great posting.

[…] bear (who actually never makes an appearance). You can read more about the book and a a little Toddler Bear Craft we made over on Red Ted Art! But you probably know the story already anyway. I digress. Apart from […]

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